fatman17
PDF THINK TANK: CONSULTANT
- Joined
- Apr 24, 2007
- Messages
- 32,563
- Reaction score
- 98
- Country
- Location
As Pakistan comes full circle, a light is shone on Zia ul-Haq's death
Mohammad Zia-Ul-Haq died with several of his generals and the US Ambassador in a mysterious aircraft crash in 1988
James Bone and Zahid Hussain
The plane crash that killed President Muhammad Zia ul-Haq of Pakistan has spawned myriad conspiracy theories since his C-130 plunged into the Bahawalpur Desert with his top generals and the US Ambassador on board exactly 20 years ago tomorrow.
The despot’s death changed Pakistan’s political landscape in an instant, ushering the Muslim state into a period of shaky civilian rule, similar to the situation the country finds itself in today.
American, Soviet, Pakistani, Indian and even Israeli intelligence agents are among those blamed for sabotaging the plane.
But now, two decades on, the The Times has reviewed the incident and is able to shed new light on what caused the crash, offering a far more simple explanation for the disaster.
The mystery of how Zia died still captures the imagination. A former Pakistani Air Force officer has just published a novel about the dictator’s death, entitled A Case of Exploding Mangoes. In the book, Mohammed Hanif postulates the popular theory that the crew of the aircraft was incapacitated by VX nerve gas smuggled aboard by a Pakistani intelligence agent. Over the years many possible culprits have been identified for the Zia killing, ranging from the ex-Soviet KGB or the Soviet-backed Afghan Government of the time to Pakistan’s arch-rival, India, and even members of General Zia’s own military.
A former US Ambassador to India was relieved of his post after telling Washington that he believed the Israelis, concerned about Pakistan’s nuclear ambitions, were behind the crash. At least one relative of the US military attaché who was killed in the aircraft blames General Zia’s rival, Benazir Bhutto, who was assassinated at the end of last year.
This month, General Hameed Gul, the Islamic hardliner who was head of Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) spy agency at the time, suggested that the United States might be responsible for murdering its Cold War ally – even though the US Ambassador and military attaché were also killed.
General Gul told The Times that the Pakistani President was killed in a conspiracy involving a “foreign power”.
The Times has uncovered a far less complicated explanation. According to US investigators, a mechanical problem, known to be relatively common with the C-130 military transport aircraft, was to blame. “There were a lot of conspiracy theories and there still are, understandably in that part of the world,” Robert Oakley, who took over as US Ambassador after the crash and helped to handle the politically fraught investigation, told The Times. “
I said [to the Pakistanis]: ‘You are all going to think this is sabotage but I do not have evidence of that . . . We think it’s mechanical failure. We have looked at the records of the US Air Force. We have found a number of failures – maybe 20 or 30 – where C130s behaved this way.” General Zia, Pakistan’s longest-ruling military dictator, was killed when his aircraft crashed minutes after taking off from the southern Punjab city of Bahawalpur on August 17, 1988. Arnold Raphel, the US Ambassador, and Brigadier-General Herbert Wassom, his military attaché, were among 29 other people killed on the flight, including many of Pakistan’s top generals.
Witnesses to the crash cited in Pakistan’s official investigation said that the C-130 began to pitch “in an up-and-down motion” while flying low shortly after take-off before going into a “near-vertical dive” into the desert. General Aslam Beg, who became Chief of Army Staff after General Zia’s death, saw the crash from his aircraft, which had just taken off. Instead of returning to the site he headed straight to Islamabad. His action later caused controversy, leading some to allege his involvement.
He refused to comment when approached by The Times this month. “There is no point talking about the incident after 20 years. There are many more important issues in the country at this point,” he said.
Early reports suggested that Raphel had only been summoned to join the flight at the last minute, fuelling conspiracy theories blaming the US.
But Nancy Ely-Raphel, the Ambassador’s widow, told The Times that her husband always planned to join General Zia on the aircraft, and that it was General Wassom who was added at the last minute.
Mrs Ely-Raphel, who later became US Ambassador to Slovenia, was working for the US Agency for International Development in Pakistan at the time. She was in Karachi on that day and had just gone to the US Consul-General’s residence when he told her the news of her husband’s death. “Initially I thought maybe it was Benazir’s brother, but no one has ever taken credit for it and those things are not the kind of things you do by yourself. Pakistan is not the kind of place where those things do not come out,” she said.
Washington sent a team of US Air Force officers to assist the Pakistanis in the investigation. The two sides reached sharply different conclusions.
Mrs Ely-Raphel and Brigadier-General Wassom’s wife, Judy, were both told by US investigators that the crash was caused by a mechanical fault.
“It seems there was a mechanical failure for a C-130 in Colorado and the same thing happened,” Mrs Ely-Raphel said. “A C-130 had gone into gyrations in the air over Colorado. It was not as close to the ground. They pulled it out.
“It was the steering mechanism, is the way he described it to me. It did not crash but it went through these gyrations up in the air and the pilot pulled it out. I had always thought C130s were the workhorses of the air. I was quite surprised when the Air Force described to me what they had discovered,” she said.
M rs Wassom says she has had to abandon her suspicions that it was sabotage. “My personal feelings about it was that it was not an accident. However, I was told – I do not know how much after – that the Army had investigated and that it was an accident,” she said. “They gave me some kind of mechanical reason for it.”
Mr Oakley identified the mechanical fault as a problem with the hydraulics in the tail assembly. Although US Air Force pilots had handled such emergencies, the Pakistani pilots were less well equipped to do so. “These pilots did not have much experience flying C130s and they flew so low,” he said.
Looking back, Mr Oakley draws parallels between the sudden end of General Zia and the eclipse of General Musharraf, who may be forced to step down as head of state next week.
“For Zia, like Musharraf I think, his time was running out. I was amazed at the very strong exhilaration after he crashed. I think it was a country about to explode. This opened the way for really quite free and fair elections. Mrs Bhutto won and made a mess out of it and it all went downhill,” Mr Oakley said.
Indeed the failure of civilian rule prompted General Musharraf’s coup in 1999. While his era is almost over, there are fears that the cycle may be repeated. The deeply divided coalition Government running the country is engaged in a fierce power struggle and faces a growing insurgency. Many fear the chaos may sow the seeds for another military takeover.
In spite of inquiry findings, the Pakistanis are unlikely to be convinced. Weeks after the crash a 27-page summary of a secret 365-page report was produced. In the document, Pakistani investigators said that they found evidence of possible problems with the aircraft’s elevator booster package, which control the elevators on the tail that help the plane go up and down, as well as frayed or snapped control cables.
The Pakistani report said that the broken cables found at the crash site were of the proper length and had been pulled out in the accident. Analysis by a US lab found “extensive contamination” by brass and aluminium particles in the elevator booster package. But the report said: “Failure of the elevator control system due to a mechanical failure . . . is ruled out.” It cited the aircraft-maker Lockheed as saying that “even with the level of contamination found in the system, they have not normally experienced any problems other than wear.”
The report concluded: “This confirms the board’s findings that the contamination of the elevator booster package may at worst cause sluggish controls leading to overcontrol but not to an accident.”
In the absence of a mechanical cause, the Pakistani inquiry concluded that the crash was an act of sabotage.
Pakistani investigators found no conclusive evidence of an explosion on the aircraft, but said chemicals that could be used in small explosives were detected in mango seeds and a piece of rope found on the aircraft.
“The use of a chemical agent to incapacitate the pilots and thus perpetuate the accident therefore remains a distinct possibility,” the report said.
Mrs Ely-Raphel, however, insists that the poison-gas theory is preposterous. “There was nothing pointing to any kind of gas whatever in any of the reports I read,” she said.
The theories
The CIA Phosphorus-covered mango seeds amid the wreckage sparked the theory that the CIA had spiked the fruit with VX gas to eliminate Zia because of his unstable commitment to a more democratic government and his loyalty to Afghan extremists
Fate In the epilogue to her book Daughter of Destiny, Benazir Bhutto noted that “Zia's death must have been an act of God”
Bhutto Family Mrs Bhutto's brother, Mir Murtaza Bhutto. Head of the anti-Zia guerrilla group al-Zulfikar. Admitted to five attempts to assassinate Zia, who executed his father. His sister stood to win power if Zia were removed
The KBG The Soviet Union wanted revenge for its failure to subdue the Mujahidin in Afghanistan who had found safe haven and were armed and supported by Zia
Mossad John Gunther Dean, American Ambassador to India in 1988, suspected that the Israeli secret service was behind the attack, to stop Pakistan from developing nuclear weapons
India Pakistan's traditional enemy, anxious about a potential Islamist victory in Kabul, was also suspected
Pakistani Intelligence Notorious Inter-Services Intelligence agency is accused of sabotaging the aircraft
Source: worldpolicy.org; Times Archive
Mohammad Zia-Ul-Haq died with several of his generals and the US Ambassador in a mysterious aircraft crash in 1988
James Bone and Zahid Hussain
The plane crash that killed President Muhammad Zia ul-Haq of Pakistan has spawned myriad conspiracy theories since his C-130 plunged into the Bahawalpur Desert with his top generals and the US Ambassador on board exactly 20 years ago tomorrow.
The despot’s death changed Pakistan’s political landscape in an instant, ushering the Muslim state into a period of shaky civilian rule, similar to the situation the country finds itself in today.
American, Soviet, Pakistani, Indian and even Israeli intelligence agents are among those blamed for sabotaging the plane.
But now, two decades on, the The Times has reviewed the incident and is able to shed new light on what caused the crash, offering a far more simple explanation for the disaster.
The mystery of how Zia died still captures the imagination. A former Pakistani Air Force officer has just published a novel about the dictator’s death, entitled A Case of Exploding Mangoes. In the book, Mohammed Hanif postulates the popular theory that the crew of the aircraft was incapacitated by VX nerve gas smuggled aboard by a Pakistani intelligence agent. Over the years many possible culprits have been identified for the Zia killing, ranging from the ex-Soviet KGB or the Soviet-backed Afghan Government of the time to Pakistan’s arch-rival, India, and even members of General Zia’s own military.
A former US Ambassador to India was relieved of his post after telling Washington that he believed the Israelis, concerned about Pakistan’s nuclear ambitions, were behind the crash. At least one relative of the US military attaché who was killed in the aircraft blames General Zia’s rival, Benazir Bhutto, who was assassinated at the end of last year.
This month, General Hameed Gul, the Islamic hardliner who was head of Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) spy agency at the time, suggested that the United States might be responsible for murdering its Cold War ally – even though the US Ambassador and military attaché were also killed.
General Gul told The Times that the Pakistani President was killed in a conspiracy involving a “foreign power”.
The Times has uncovered a far less complicated explanation. According to US investigators, a mechanical problem, known to be relatively common with the C-130 military transport aircraft, was to blame. “There were a lot of conspiracy theories and there still are, understandably in that part of the world,” Robert Oakley, who took over as US Ambassador after the crash and helped to handle the politically fraught investigation, told The Times. “
I said [to the Pakistanis]: ‘You are all going to think this is sabotage but I do not have evidence of that . . . We think it’s mechanical failure. We have looked at the records of the US Air Force. We have found a number of failures – maybe 20 or 30 – where C130s behaved this way.” General Zia, Pakistan’s longest-ruling military dictator, was killed when his aircraft crashed minutes after taking off from the southern Punjab city of Bahawalpur on August 17, 1988. Arnold Raphel, the US Ambassador, and Brigadier-General Herbert Wassom, his military attaché, were among 29 other people killed on the flight, including many of Pakistan’s top generals.
Witnesses to the crash cited in Pakistan’s official investigation said that the C-130 began to pitch “in an up-and-down motion” while flying low shortly after take-off before going into a “near-vertical dive” into the desert. General Aslam Beg, who became Chief of Army Staff after General Zia’s death, saw the crash from his aircraft, which had just taken off. Instead of returning to the site he headed straight to Islamabad. His action later caused controversy, leading some to allege his involvement.
He refused to comment when approached by The Times this month. “There is no point talking about the incident after 20 years. There are many more important issues in the country at this point,” he said.
Early reports suggested that Raphel had only been summoned to join the flight at the last minute, fuelling conspiracy theories blaming the US.
But Nancy Ely-Raphel, the Ambassador’s widow, told The Times that her husband always planned to join General Zia on the aircraft, and that it was General Wassom who was added at the last minute.
Mrs Ely-Raphel, who later became US Ambassador to Slovenia, was working for the US Agency for International Development in Pakistan at the time. She was in Karachi on that day and had just gone to the US Consul-General’s residence when he told her the news of her husband’s death. “Initially I thought maybe it was Benazir’s brother, but no one has ever taken credit for it and those things are not the kind of things you do by yourself. Pakistan is not the kind of place where those things do not come out,” she said.
Washington sent a team of US Air Force officers to assist the Pakistanis in the investigation. The two sides reached sharply different conclusions.
Mrs Ely-Raphel and Brigadier-General Wassom’s wife, Judy, were both told by US investigators that the crash was caused by a mechanical fault.
“It seems there was a mechanical failure for a C-130 in Colorado and the same thing happened,” Mrs Ely-Raphel said. “A C-130 had gone into gyrations in the air over Colorado. It was not as close to the ground. They pulled it out.
“It was the steering mechanism, is the way he described it to me. It did not crash but it went through these gyrations up in the air and the pilot pulled it out. I had always thought C130s were the workhorses of the air. I was quite surprised when the Air Force described to me what they had discovered,” she said.
M rs Wassom says she has had to abandon her suspicions that it was sabotage. “My personal feelings about it was that it was not an accident. However, I was told – I do not know how much after – that the Army had investigated and that it was an accident,” she said. “They gave me some kind of mechanical reason for it.”
Mr Oakley identified the mechanical fault as a problem with the hydraulics in the tail assembly. Although US Air Force pilots had handled such emergencies, the Pakistani pilots were less well equipped to do so. “These pilots did not have much experience flying C130s and they flew so low,” he said.
Looking back, Mr Oakley draws parallels between the sudden end of General Zia and the eclipse of General Musharraf, who may be forced to step down as head of state next week.
“For Zia, like Musharraf I think, his time was running out. I was amazed at the very strong exhilaration after he crashed. I think it was a country about to explode. This opened the way for really quite free and fair elections. Mrs Bhutto won and made a mess out of it and it all went downhill,” Mr Oakley said.
Indeed the failure of civilian rule prompted General Musharraf’s coup in 1999. While his era is almost over, there are fears that the cycle may be repeated. The deeply divided coalition Government running the country is engaged in a fierce power struggle and faces a growing insurgency. Many fear the chaos may sow the seeds for another military takeover.
In spite of inquiry findings, the Pakistanis are unlikely to be convinced. Weeks after the crash a 27-page summary of a secret 365-page report was produced. In the document, Pakistani investigators said that they found evidence of possible problems with the aircraft’s elevator booster package, which control the elevators on the tail that help the plane go up and down, as well as frayed or snapped control cables.
The Pakistani report said that the broken cables found at the crash site were of the proper length and had been pulled out in the accident. Analysis by a US lab found “extensive contamination” by brass and aluminium particles in the elevator booster package. But the report said: “Failure of the elevator control system due to a mechanical failure . . . is ruled out.” It cited the aircraft-maker Lockheed as saying that “even with the level of contamination found in the system, they have not normally experienced any problems other than wear.”
The report concluded: “This confirms the board’s findings that the contamination of the elevator booster package may at worst cause sluggish controls leading to overcontrol but not to an accident.”
In the absence of a mechanical cause, the Pakistani inquiry concluded that the crash was an act of sabotage.
Pakistani investigators found no conclusive evidence of an explosion on the aircraft, but said chemicals that could be used in small explosives were detected in mango seeds and a piece of rope found on the aircraft.
“The use of a chemical agent to incapacitate the pilots and thus perpetuate the accident therefore remains a distinct possibility,” the report said.
Mrs Ely-Raphel, however, insists that the poison-gas theory is preposterous. “There was nothing pointing to any kind of gas whatever in any of the reports I read,” she said.
The theories
The CIA Phosphorus-covered mango seeds amid the wreckage sparked the theory that the CIA had spiked the fruit with VX gas to eliminate Zia because of his unstable commitment to a more democratic government and his loyalty to Afghan extremists
Fate In the epilogue to her book Daughter of Destiny, Benazir Bhutto noted that “Zia's death must have been an act of God”
Bhutto Family Mrs Bhutto's brother, Mir Murtaza Bhutto. Head of the anti-Zia guerrilla group al-Zulfikar. Admitted to five attempts to assassinate Zia, who executed his father. His sister stood to win power if Zia were removed
The KBG The Soviet Union wanted revenge for its failure to subdue the Mujahidin in Afghanistan who had found safe haven and were armed and supported by Zia
Mossad John Gunther Dean, American Ambassador to India in 1988, suspected that the Israeli secret service was behind the attack, to stop Pakistan from developing nuclear weapons
India Pakistan's traditional enemy, anxious about a potential Islamist victory in Kabul, was also suspected
Pakistani Intelligence Notorious Inter-Services Intelligence agency is accused of sabotaging the aircraft
Source: worldpolicy.org; Times Archive
Last edited:
i failed to understand that if parliamentarians no matter how they get into the parliament and no matter what is their credibility and what is their chrachter change the constitution to suit their agenda then whats the fuss about the constitution
